I had the chance to speak about Peter Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity (1971) at St John’s College, Oxford (@stjohnsox.bsky.social) for the National Year of Reading 2026. 🙂 youtube.com/shorts/njfxK...
I had the chance to speak about Peter Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity (1971) at St John’s College, Oxford (@stjohnsox.bsky.social) for the National Year of Reading 2026. 🙂 youtube.com/shorts/njfxK...
As we mourn the great Averil Cameron, I point you to her autobiographical talk from 2017: on being working class and female in Ancient History wcc-uk.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2017/05/22/s...
A C10th runestone from Tryggevælde, Denmark 🪨
Ragnhild, Ulf's sister, placed this stone and made this mound, and this ship(-setting), in memory of her husband Gunulf, a clamorous man, Nærve's son. Few will now be born better than him.
My 📷 Nationalmuseet
The next History of Liturgy Seminar is in London @ihr.bsky.social on Monday 16 March 17.30. Come hear Melanie Shaffer @bristolcms.bsky.social & @carrielarocco.bsky.social. In-person (chat! drinks! people!) or online. #medievalsky
www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
2-year postdoc for someone with a PhD in Classics or Ancient History www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQS114/p... @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social
Thank you 🙏 :)
Bronze head of Sulis Minerva, looking straight ahead at the viewer
Finally got to see the bronze head of Sulis Minerva at the Roman baths 🖤
View of the Roman baths from the floor level; Bath Abbey is visible in the background.
Another view of the Roman baths from the floor level, at dusk - torches are lit and there are statues of several emperors in the upper level.
The Roman baths in Somerset, England
Bronze head of Sulis Minerva, looking straight ahead at the viewer
Finally got to see the bronze head of Sulis Minerva at the Roman baths 🖤
Roman baby shoe 🥹
Do the Visigothic kings Recceswinth and Wamba need a state funeral? (answer: no, no they do not)
A close up of a page of the manuscript with a drawing of a tiny animal in the bottom margin / next to the last line of text on the page
It also had this on one of the pages ☺️
A close-up photo of a page of the manuscript, showing the script as well as the different colors - red for headings, the majority of the font (written in Carolingian minuscule?) in black, and in the middle of the page, there is a very large decoration in blue, red, violet, and gold leaf at the start of one section
A photo showing the same opening page of the manuscript, just not cropped / zoomed in, so more of the gold, red, blue, and violet is visible
Got to have a look at this 12th-century copy of Orosius’ History in the library at St John’s 🙂 (St John’s College MS 95)
A photo of one page of the manuscript (fol. 43v), which has illustrations of various scenes from the story. For me the point of the photo was not the scenes themselves, but the overall effect of the page, which is very intricately and elaborately decorated, with a lot of gold, elaborate patterns and borders, etc. The manuscript is lit so that the gold in particular catches your eye.
A photo of the manuscript open to the previous page (fol. 43v) and the page to the right of it (fol. 44r), which contains text of the story, as well as more illustrations bordering the text. The overall effect (to me) is very intricate and impressive.
A 14th-century manuscript of the Romance of Alexander (the Great) that I saw in the Treasured exhibition at the Weston Library. [Shelfmark: Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 264; fols. 43v-44r].
A photo of one page of the manuscript (fol. 43v), which has illustrations of various scenes from the story. For me the point of the photo was not the scenes themselves, but the overall effect of the page, which is very intricately and elaborately decorated, with a lot of gold, elaborate patterns and borders, etc. The manuscript is lit so that the gold in particular catches your eye.
A photo of the manuscript open to the previous page (fol. 43v) and the page to the right of it (fol. 44r), which contains text of the story, as well as more illustrations bordering the text. The overall effect (to me) is very intricate and impressive.
A 14th-century manuscript of the Romance of Alexander (the Great) that I saw in the Treasured exhibition at the Weston Library. [Shelfmark: Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 264; fols. 43v-44r].
The whole point of being an academic is that you need to be willing to spend three days creating a 700-word footnote that you will later delete. And you need to LIKE IT.
Hot on the heels of our 1st webinar of this season comes the 2nd:
‘Mobility and Cult of Relics in the Mediterranean from Late Antiquity to the Islamic Period: The Case of the Iberian Peninsula’
Wednesday 3 December, 17.00 (UTC)
All welcome, please register here: tinyurl.com/4zns7deh
Photo of a library with brown and white striped ceilings (brown from the wooden beams), old globes, manuscripts, and rugs
Still feel so lucky that I get to do my research in the Old Library at St John’s (@stjohnsox.bsky.social) 🙂 Such a beautiful place.
Photo of an auditorium with a large projector screen on the stage, and a slide on the screen showing the poster of the 1960 film La Vendetta dei Barbari and the title ‘Late Roman and Visigothic women in visual media’ which depicts Galla Placidia, Honorius, and various other figures.
Was happy to give a talk on late Roman and Visigothic women in cinema + other art at St John’s College @stjohnsox.bsky.social, this weekend, as part of a panel on the Ancient World in Digital Media for Oxford Open Doors 2025. I talked about, e.g., Galla Placidia in Revenge of the Barbarians (1960).
a university is not for generating profit, it provides cultural enrichment via weird little gremlin people who love visigoths or haikus, and very occasionally a scientist who figures out faster than light travel
A (very short) look at some of what I’m working on during my fellowship at St John’s: www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/res...
A (very short) look at some of what I’m working on during my fellowship at St John’s: www.sjc.ox.ac.uk/discover/res...
ACADEMIC READING ALREADY COMES WITH A SUMMARY IT IS CALLED THE ABSTRACT
We in academia are being inundated with a new fallacy: The all-tech-is-the-same fallacy.
As educators, part of our job is to evaluate different technologies, using some & rejecting others based on their actual utility (or potential harm) in meeting properly *educational* goals.
Spotted this extraordinary comparandum on the Twitter account of @persiaantigua.bsky.social
Drawing of the outside of the tablet by RSO Tomlin - only a couple of lines of Roman cursive are visible
Drawing by RSO Tomlin of the inside of the tablet - many more lines of cursive are visible
I’ve been reading through Latin curse tablets (defixiones) and thought this one from Roman-period Britain was neat: someone seemingly cursing the person who stole their beehive ‘vas apium’)! 🐝 (Brit. 48.10 10; text and images: romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions...; images by R.S.O. Tomlin)
Tomorrow!! 🏺🏛️
Thank you! :)